Marcilynn A. Burke has been
very active since returning to the Law Center in January 2013. Her paper
on hydraulic fracturing, Reframing, Restraining, and Refocusing: The
3Rs of Regulating Hydraulic Fracturing on Federal Public Lands, was selected for presentation at
the 2013 International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Academy of
Environmental Law’s Annual Colloquium in Hamilton, New Zealand in June
2013. She presented her paper along with environmental and energy scholars
from across the globe. In July Professor Burke was interviewed by Hart Energy,
an on-line industry publication. Professor Burke commented extensively on
Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell’s plan for seismic exploration of a section of the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that he submitted to the U.S. Department of the
Interior to determine the extent of its oil and gas resources. Later in
the month, she was the keynote speaker at the 59th Annual Rocky Mountain
Mineral Law Foundation Institute, Natural Resources Law Teachers Lunch. And
in August 2013 she presented her paper on hydraulic fracturing at the Colorado
Law and Duke School of Law’s Fifth Annual Summer Works-in-Progress Symposium,
“Natural Resources, Energy, and Environment in a Climate Changed World.”
By the end of the symposium, the consensus was that Professor Burke had two
papers, not just one! Professor Burke was named “Scholar of the Week” by
the Center for Law, Environment, Adaptation and Resources at the University of North Carolina School of Law this March. (And despite the story in one of her hometown’s newspapers, she did
not graduate from college and law school in 1961 and 1965, respectively; the
years were 1991 and 1995.). She was also recognized in May in the
alumni spotlight of the Global Studies Curriculum at the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill. She was chosen because of her work in the Obama
Administration.

David R. Dow addressed the
Charter 100 Civic Association in Houston on September 11; his topic was
“Reducing the Risk of Wrongful Convictions.” He was also a featured
speaker at the 32nd annual Life Over Death training
conference for death penalty lawyers in Bonita Springs, Florida; he lectured on
“How to Preserve Error That is Not Yet Error in a Capital Trial.” He
delivered the 2013 Supplement to his contract law treatise to Thompson-West;
and his most recent book,The Autobiography of an Execution,
was published in China.

Meredith J. Duncan is one
of only 26 law professors featured in the recently published book by Michael
Hunter Schwartz, Gerald F. Hess, and Sophie M. Sparrow, What the Best Law
Teachers Do (Harvard University Press 2013), a study of the "methods,
strategies, and personal traits of law professors whose students achieve
exceptional learning." She will be one of the presenters at the Law
Teaching and Learning's Summer Conference, "What the Best Law
Teachers Do" at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago on
June 25-27, 2014. She has also agreed to participate in the Criminal Justice
Ethics program to be held at Fordham Law School in June 2014 as well. She is
currently completing the manuscript for an Advanced Torts casebook, Advanced
Torts: A Lawyer's Perspective, soon to be published by Carolina Academic
Press.

Barbara Evans’ article on managing liability
risks associated with clinical exome sequencing will
be the featured article in the December issue of Genetics in Medicine
and was published online ahead of print on September 12 at

Since August, she has been heavily involved in research studies
sponsored by FDA, NIH, and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and submitted
various writings for those projects. In early October she will attend a meeting
of the IOM Committee on Ethics Principles and Guidelines for Health Standards
for Long Duration and Exploration Spaceflights in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
This month, she peer-reviewed articles for New England Journal of Medicine,
Genetics in Medicine, Chest, and Journal of General Internal
Medicine. She is serving on the academic programs committee of the Food
& Drug Law Institute and recently completed service on the steering
committee for the UH Faculty Senate’s 15th annual conference which is
addressing urban healthcare in Houston.

Jim
Hawkins' article Selling ART: An Empirical Assessment of Advertising on
Fertility Clinics’ Websites was published in the Indiana Law Journal(88
Ind. L.J. 1147 (2013)). Professor Hawkins will present a paper on title
lending at the Canadian Law and Economics Association annual meeting in Toronto
on September 28th.

Geoffrey
Hoffman traveled to New Orleans for a clinic case in the Fifth Circuit in
early September. On September 10, he attended the American Immigration Lawyers’
Association meeting for law students and legal educators on comprehensive
immigration reform issues. On September 11, he met with the Houston Bar
Association president and other immigration professors regarding immigration
issues in Houston.

Craig Joyce published the Ninth Edition of Copyright
Law, now in its 28th year.

Sapna
Kumar presented her article Life,
Liberty, and the Pursuit of Genetic Information at the Cardozo IP
Colloquium in New York.

Jacqueline
Lipton’s article, Cyber-Bullying and the First Amendment, was
published in the Florida Coastal Law Review (14 Fla. Coastal L. Rev. 99
(2012)).

Gerry Moohr attended the SEALS
conference in August, and presented two papers. The first, White Collar Crime Goes to the Movies was part of a workshop on
teaching criminal law and procedure, focusing on white collar crime
courses.This essay will be published by
the Ohio State Law Journal.The
second presentation was part of a workshop on “The Constantly Evolving Law of
Insider Trading.”Her paper, The Common Law Crime of Insider Trading
is part of a larger project that examines the scope of fiduciary duties in
crimes of fraud.

Tom
Oldham has written an essay about the impact of economic inequality on
American families that will be published in the Family Law Quarterly
this month.

Although he has not earned his SAG card, Michael A. Olivas appeared in the PBS series Latino Americans,
discussing his research on the post-WWII discrimination encountered by Mexican
American veterans; on September 12, he appeared on a panel (including the
Series producer/director) discussing the film series at the Houston Public
Library. He briefed a group of reporters and opinion writers on immigration
reform issues, and a separate group on proposals surfacing to revise or
eliminate 3L enrollment requirements; drawing from his forthcoming article in
the McGeorge Law Review on the subject, he
was asked to publish an editorial on the subject in the print and online National
Law Journal editions.

Jordan Paust’s article on Armed Attacks and Imputation: Would a Nuclear Weaponized
Iran Trigger Permissible Israeli and U.S. Measures of Self-Defense?has been accepted for publication in 45(2) of the Georgetown
Journal of International Law. At the request of the Duke Forum for Law
and Social Change, he also wrote an article on Human Rights Through the ATS AfterKiobel:
Partial Extraterritoriality, Misconceptions, and Elusive and Problematic
Judicially-Created Criteria. It will be published in 2014. His on-line essay on Lawful Use of Force in Syria and the U.N. Charter is available at http://jurist.org/forum/2013/09/jordan-paust-force-syria.php.

Susan Sakmar’s recently released book,Energy for the 21st Century:
Opportunities and Challenges for LNG, explores the dynamic world of the
fastest growing segment of the energy sector - liquefied natural gas – or LNG.Some might recall that just a few years ago,
the U.S. was destined to be the world’s largest importer of LNG. Thanks to the
shale gas “revolution,” the U.S. may well become the world’s largest LNG
exporter!This is a development that the
entire energy world is watching and some predict that it could have wide
ranging geopolitical implications as well.The book is now available on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/dp/1849804214
or direct from the publisher, Edward Elgar, at http://www.e-elgar.co.uk/bookentry_main.lasso?id=14131.
Professor Sakmar’s article, Globalization and Trade Initiatives in the Arab World: Historical
Context, Progress to Date, and Prospects for the Future, was re-published
in the Air and Space Power Journal,
Africa and Francophonie (article published in
English and French), 3rd Quarter 2013.The
Air and Space Power Journal is the professional journal of the U.S. Air
Force.The article was originally
published in 2007 (42 U.S.F. L. Rev. 919), but in the context of the Arab
Spring and other recent events in the Middle East, there appears to be renewed
relevance. In brief, the article discusses the Middle East Free Trade Area
Initiative (MEFTA), which was proposed by President Bush in 2003 in an effort
to promote trade, development and economic growth in the Arab region. In my
opinion, this was one of President Bush’s better ideas but it never seemed to
get any traction. Indeed, few will remember that the MEFTA was supposed to be
concluded in 2013!

Sandra
Guerra Thompson attended the meeting of the Houston Forensic Science LGC of which
she is a member of the board on September 13, 2013. Professor Thompson’s
September 2011 article in the New
York Timesregarding
faulty eyewitness testimony was mentioned in an article on the Baltimore Sunwebsite. She has also been
invited to present a paper at a Criminal Justice Colloquium at SMU Dedman School of Law.

Ronald
Turner's forthcoming publications include On Substantive Due Process and Discretionary Traditionalism, SMU
Law Review, and Title VII, the
Third-Party Retaliation Issue, and the "Plain Language" Mirage, Alabama
Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review.He recently completed the 2013 cumulative
supplement to the seventh edition of Smith, Craver & Turner, Employment
Discrimination Law: Cases and Materials (LexisNexis), and is completing
work on a co-authored casebook Employment Law: Issues, Theories, and
Realities (West).

Greg Vetter submitted a response essay for publication,
entitled A Public Domain Approach to Free and Open Source Software?,
which will be published by the Ohio State Law Journal in its Furthermore supplement.

Jacqueline
Weaver directed and taught in a week-long Advanced Legal Studies course
on selected topics in international petroleum law for 12 attorneys from Petrobras, the national oil company of Brazil during
the first week of August.

Bret Wells presented "Status of Fundamental
Business Tax Reform" to the 31st Annual Advanced Tax Law Course of the
State Bar of Texas on August 15.